I will be on the Grand Princess leaving Dec.30/06 out of Galveston. Does anyone know if the balcony rooms (I'm in C218) have a blow dryer in each room, or do I need to pack one? Also, do these rooms have safes inside to store documents, jewelry, money etc.?

Hello Nicolette,
all cabins on all Princess ships have hair dryers and safes. Just don't make the mistake I did, looking for it in the bathroom (the hair dryer that is); it's on the wall by the mirror at your desk. The safe is in the closet. Have a great cruise. Grand Princess is one of my favorites.
Tip: best place to watch the sailaway is by the Terrace Pool at the back of Aloha deck.

We have just returned from a 7 day to those same ports on the Grand. I assume the do's and do-not's you are referring to are in reference to the ports. Our age group consisted of 4 yrs - 54 yrs. We found out the hard way that in Belize, you definitely have to book an excursion. There are a few shops on Fort Street along the waterfront where you tender in but past that, Belize City is NOT an area you want to walk around in. The Chacchoben Mayan Ruins in Costa Maya were really good. We booked online with www.chacchobenruins.com. The price was about half of what the ship cost was. Anything is fun in Cozumel. Safe, clean, beautiful, as far as I am concerned. In Roatan, we booked online with Bodden Tours. The owner is Victor Bodden. He had a van waiting for our family at the port and for $25.00pp, took us anywhere and did anything we wanted and this was while his wife was at the hospital getting ready to deliver their daughter. He was absolutely fantastic and so was his island. Hope you have fun and good luck with your choices.

Funny you should ask;
if you haven't come across it already, read the response I posted at 6:04 p.m. to raffles thread,"Princess vs. Carnival out of NYC". The only place on your itinerary I've been is Cozumel, and all I did there was snorkel and frankly, it wasn't the best. But anything else I can help you with, I would love to try.
Bye for now.

First, I would like to THANK YOU AGAIN for all your tidbits of advice!!

You mentioned a "semi sub" in Roatan... what was that?

As for Victor Bodden, I did e-mail him as you suggested but he's already booked on the day we arrive.

As for the Chacchoben Mayan Ruins, did you find there was a lot to see there? (ie- how many ruins are there? Just a few, or many?)

I looked up your suggestion of using www.chacchobenruins.com to save us money instead of going with the cruiseship... did you find you had a smaller group of people this way, thereby having more personalized service? Also, did you have a hard time locating them once you got off the ship?